A Fatherly Manner

Statistics about the decline of fatherhood are very sobering, but I’m not here to bring readers down or to make people feel bad if they did not have or don’t have a happy family life.

Our culture, however, has gone overboard to devalue fathers in a mad quest to impose a social order free from natural, God-given differences. The wreckage emanating from that viewpoint is all around us, with many children deprived of having a father in the home. Or even a grandfather. Or at least a man who isn’t wearing a dress and high heels.

The good news is that despite their best efforts, our cultural overseers will never fully erase the fact that fathers provide certain things that mothers don’t and vice versa. Nature and nature’s God are not easily thwarted.

Every time Father’s Day rolls around, I think of the many things my Dad taught me and my siblings, from the value of integrity and how to be a good husband and father, to seeing a job through regardless of difficulty.

In his “reality discipline” book, Making Children Mind Without Losing Yours, Kevin Leman argues that the No. 1 goal for fathers (and mothers, too) should not be to raise a child who is happy but a child who is responsible. That means “letting the little buzzards fall” now and then so that they can understand that actions, or lack of them, have consequences. We’re talking here about unpleasant outcomes, not safety risks.

Given the chaos on today’s campuses, replete with “safe spaces” stocked with playdough and coloring books for “snowflakes” who collapse upon hearing opinions that differ from theirs, one gets the impression that all too many parents have opted to make junior “happy” rather than responsible.

My own dad taught me early on that actions had consequences and that if a chore was not done, it was not going to go away on its own. On the lighter side, my dad taught other valuable things as well, such as table manners, which was an ongoing struggle.

There I’d be, chomping on a hamburger with my other arm resting on the table, and suddenly I had that feeling of being watched. Critically.

Looking up, I was not at all surprised to see my Dad with a wry grin, launching what is now called a teaching moment. Looking at my plate, he’d ask, “Why don’t you put your foot in it?” We all laughed, but the point was taken.

My grandparents also helped train us, partly by having us read a picture book and poem about the nefarious Goop family. One of the stanzas goes like this:

The Goops they lick their fingers,
And the Goops they lick their knives;
They spill their broth on the tablecloth —-
Oh, they lead disgusting lives!

Wow. Who wants to be disgusting? Now that I have children and grandchildren, I’m trying to employ some of the same tactics, so far with mixed results. The adult kids have mastered basic table manners, but they are also primed to catch me whenever I violate my own standards. Who would have thought they would become such talented mimics?

What goes around comes around, mostly. Whenever I visit my dad, who is now 93 and living the good life in Maine, I am self-conscious of my own manners, but also alert to his deportment in hopes of catching him in a violation. It never happens. He’s the kind of guy who eats cupcakes with a knife and fork, with pinky extended. Okay, I’m kidding about the pinky. He is, after all, a decorated war veteran, husband and father, faithful churchgoer, patriotic citizen and all man.

One morning, when my daughter was about 8 years old, I became acutely aware of how much children observe. She suddenly picked up a newspaper in one hand, a coffee cup in the other, and declared in a loud voice, “This is Daddy: ‘The liberals are wrong!’”

My wife grew wide-eyed and then howled. So did I. My daughter had nailed it.

For the record, I still think liberals are wrong about a lot of things. A big one is diminishing the importance of fathers in their children’s lives.

State Laws
When people think about the law, some of the first things that come to mind might be the Constitution or the Supreme Court. However, the fact is that most of our interactions with legal issues and the law actually involve matters of state and local laws

The American Civil Rights Union
The American Civil Rights Union (ACRU) is dedicated to protecting the civil rights of all Americans by publicly advancing a Constitutional understanding of our essential rights and freedoms.

The Federalist Society
The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies is a group of conservatives and libertarians interested in the current state of the legal order.

The Innocence Project
The Innocence Project is a national litigation and public policy organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted individuals through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice.

The Rutherford Institute
The Rutherford Institute, a nonprofit civil liberties organization based in Charlottesville, Va., is deeply committed to protecting the constitutional freedoms of every American and integral human rights of all people through legal and education programs

The Thomas More Law Center
Thomas More Law Center mission is to: Preserve America’s Judeo-Christian heritage; freedom of Christians; sanctity of human life; strong National Defense ; a free and sovereign USA